


The Wayward Son

by YouCantKeepMeDown



Series: Princes, Pirates, and Vampires [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Pirate, M/M, Minor Character Death, Pirate Jess, Pirate Sam Winchester, Princes & Princesses, Sam and Jess are just friends, War Injuries, mention of past torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-03-31 04:14:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13967118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YouCantKeepMeDown/pseuds/YouCantKeepMeDown
Summary: Sam had been missing for a while. When King John Winchester dies, efforts of finding him are renewed, and this time the Winchester's new allies are helping. That's why Michael sends his brother Gabriel to look for Sam.





	The Wayward Son

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for the SPN AU and Trope Bingo. It's for the square pirate!AU.
> 
> It's part of the same verse as Defying Expectations.
> 
> Thanks to my wonderful beta reader Coplins! Also thanks to Askatosch for coming up with clothes for winged people. I definitely didn't do your sketches justice with the descriptions, though.

Somehow the angels manage to land right at the same time as Adam’s horse comes to a stop in the castle courtyard. It makes for an impressive view, Dean has to admit, Michael dropping down in a way that looks like it’ll leave a dent in the ground slightly to Adam’s right, Lucifer setting down quite a bit more gracefully slightly to Adam’s left. They both fold their wings behind their backs, and step forward while Adam dismounts his horse.

Then Adam is the first with Dean, and they hug. “I’m sorry to hear about father.”

Everybody is sorry right now. Dean can’t hear it anymore. To distract from the obvious topic, he hold Adam at arm’s length and looks him up and down. “I’m glad it brought you back here for a while. You’ve gone full native by now, huh?”

Adam’s clothes are weird to say the least. Well, the pants are mostly normal, but the shirt is flowy and cut very low at the back. Which would make sense, if Adam had wings, but all he has are two long pieces of fabric that hang from his shoulders almost down to the ground. Granted, Michael and Lucifer have them on their garments, too, and they probably make for some nice effect flying, but on Adam the look a bit like a bad excuse for fake wings all things considered.

Adam pulls a face. “Well, it’s my home now, isn’t it?” He sounds a bit testy. So he’s still mad about being left with the angels. Dean knows he himself would be.

“Well,” he says. “I guess …”

Thankfully, before he can make things worse, Michael steps towards them, wings half open and curling around Adam a bit. Curiously, Adam actually leans into the midnight colored feathers, so maybe he’s not that unhappy after all. Good.

“My condolences,” Michael says. “Please let us know, if there’s anything we can do for our new ally in this dark hour.”

Dean is pretty sure he can see Lucifer roll his eyes a few steps away, and he can’t even be mad, because he feels the same. His father just died. The last thing he wants to be is diplomatic right now. “Thank you,” he says anyway. “There’s actually one thing.”

Michael tilts his head curiously.

“I thought maybe your wing boys have a better chance at getting the news to Sam than we do.” Since they have allies with wings now, they can as well make use of them, can’t they?

“Sam?” Michael asks. “Wasn’t he kidnapped by pirates?”

“Well …” Dean starts, set on telling the official story about this, but Adam is faster.

He huffs. “You can call it kidnapped or you could say that he ran away.”

“We don’t know that for sure!” Dean glares at Adam. It still hurts thinking that Sam left them of his own free will. And on top of that, you don’t go around ratting him out to some feather brain like that. They all know there was only one reason for Sam to run away and that was the fact that one of them had to marry one of the angels.

Adam just shrugs and turns to his new husband. “He’s probably with pirates. There were a few letters.”

Michael just lifts and eyebrow, but doesn’t comment on it otherwise. “I’ll send Gabriel to look for him. He’s the best at flying long distances, and he should arrive here soon.”

Well, that’s an actually nice gesture, sending his own brother. Dean hadn’t expected that. Then he looks around, though. “Where’s your entourage by the way? I expected more people.”

“Well,” Michael says. “Someone had to race my brother here, so the rest will follow slower.” He pointedly looks from Adam to Lucifer and back, and the two of them exchange slightly guilty looks.

Then Lucifer grins, though. “I won.”

“Only because the castle is on a hill!” Adam protests. “Of course my horse gets slower when it has to go up a hill.”

“Excuses.” Lucifer makes a dismissive gesture.

Dean follows the exchange with amusement. It’s really nice to see his little brother happy. Or at least fake-grumpy, judging by the way he stares at Lucifer.

“Cut it out!” Michael says. “Both of you.” Then he turns to Dean again. “You’ll have to tell Gabriel everything about where Sam most likely might be.”

“Thank you,” Dean says, actually meaning it. Getting Sam back would be a huge plus to the whole situation. Even though he’d have to answer for running away at first. Dean points towards the castle. “Come, let’s wait inside.”

* * *

Sam doesn’t see the angel until he’s right in front of him. Which happens, when you’re fighting for your life against the royal navy of – he isn’t even sure, he thinks it could be King Crowley. He lost count in how many countries someone wants them dead.

Anyway … one moment he had been busy parrying blows and dodging bullets, the next moment, one of his attackers dies with a sword through her chest, and the other two get swept overboard by huge golden wings. Not far away Captain Jess curses in surprise. But all Sam can do is stare into the whiskey colored eyes of the small, winged man in front of him. He knows those eyes. He’s seen them before on a battlefield.

“Prince Sam Winchester?” the angel asks.

It takes Sam a moment to remember that they’re not at war anymore and that he probably should nod. He does so hurriedly.

The angel grins. “Should’ve known. Damn that I didn’t sooner, or we would’ve actually won the war. I remember you. You looked really good in chains.”

And that’s exactly not the way you want to be greeted by a former enemy.

“Sorry I can’t say anything good about spending time as your people’s prisoner,” Sam bites back.

The angel just shrugs and smiles, while the last noises of the battle die down around them. “Well, good thing we’re not at war anymore. My name is Gabriel and I’m afraid I have bad news.”

* * *

While Jess’ crew is busy throwing corpses over board and tending to the people still alive, Jess leads Sam and Gabriel to her quarters under deck. The door is a tight fit for Gabriel, his wings brushing the doorframe on all side. Inside the cabin he stretches them with a sigh.

It’s there that Sam learns that his father is dead. 

If he’s honest, he isn’t sure what to feel. It’s not like he and John Winchester had gotten along well. Still, now he frantically tries to remember the last words he’d said to his father. They had fought, hadn’t they? About the marriage plans probably. John had demanded that Sam did his duty, like he always did. And Sam had known that peace with Caelum was a good thing, but after what had happened in the few days before the end of the war …

Jess and her crew trying to kidnap him had been a blessing. Especially after it had turned out that they weren’t half bad and could even be convinced to keep him as part of the crew instead of asking for ransom for him. And he had a good life here at sea. But maybe he should’ve gone back sooner, made up with his father. It had always seemed like there was still so much time for that.

Now it’s too late and he’ll never be able to change the fact that the last words between them had been spoken in anger.

Jess pats his shoulder in sympathy. 

“Anyway …” Gabriel goes for a smile that lights the room up a bit, and Sam thinks it’s not fair that someone he’s very determined not to like has a nice smile like that. “You brothers would be very happy to have you back. At least for the funeral.”

“I’m not coming back.”

Gabriel blinks in surprise. “Come on, kiddo, just for the funeral? I’m sure you can go back to being a pirate later, if you insist on it. But don’t you want to say goodbye to your old man.”

Sam throws the angel a bitchface. Of course he wants to. And it’s not like he doesn’t miss Dean and Adam, but he’d have to answer questions about why he ran and he doesn’t feel ready for that. Not to mention that it would maybe threaten the peace.

“I’m not coming back,” he insist. And suddenly he needs to get out. Back to the fresh air. “I’ll be at the lookout,” he tells Jess.

With that he storms out.

* * *

Gabriel watches the handsome prince leave. Well, that hadn’t gone as expected, but he’s still a bit happier now that Michael had assigned him with this mission. Why had no one told him how gorgeous Sam Winchester was? “He sure knows how to make an angry exit”, he tells the pirate’s captain with a grin. Then he looks her up and down. She’s pretty, no doubt about that, especially with her blond hair still messy from the fight and a bit of blood on the missmatched uniform she’s wearing. “I mean, I get why he wants to stay, but –”

“You don’t,” she interrupts him with an amused expression on her face.

Gabriel tilts his head curiously.

“We’re just friends,” she tells him. “But you shouldn’t be surprised that he’s angry after what your people did to him.”

Wait, what? That doesn’t sound good. “What my people did to him?” Gabriel asks.

The pirate captain watches him through narrowed eyes, and Gabriel feels like he’s been really missing something. “You really don’t know, do you?” she finally asks.

“Would I waste both of our time asking stupid questions, if I did?”

That makes the corners of her mouth twitch. “You’d be surprised. But you were the one who took him prisoner, right?”

“I took a whole bunch of people prisoner, but I handed them all over to Zachariah. I had to get back to the fighting. Was leading my own battalion, we all did. It was a real shame, I tell you. Sammykins here was a sight for sore eyes. So offended about being captured.” Gabriel smiles remembering how the young man he’d thought to be a normal cavalry soldier had scowled at him most of the time.

The captain nods thoughtfully. “It’s not my place to tell you about what happened,” she says finally. “Ask him.”

Suddenly Gabriel has the feeling that he’ll be scowled at quite a bit more, before this mission is over.

* * *

The sound of enormous wings makes Sam take his eyes from the horizon. He’d been doing what a lookout is supposed to do, keeping watch for other ships. Now he scrutinizes the angel that’s sitting on the rigging of the sails, all three wing pairs spread for better balance. Gabriel is not wearing the armor he’d worn during the war, instead it’s just pants made from some soft looking fabric and a shirt that’s cut low at the back to leave room for the wings. The only thing that gives him away as a fighter is the sword at his side.

“We had strict orders to keep things civil,” he says. “With the prisoners, I mean.”

Sam looks at him skeptically. Of course they’d say that now.

“I mean it, kiddo. You should’ve seen what the Leviathans did to our soldiers. People came back with their wings ripped out, if they came back at all. With your people, we tried to show you the same curtsey you showed us, treating the prisoners decently, so it wouldn’t even start going in that direction. Michael insisted on that.” Gabriel gestures a bit. “I mean, war is war. Shit happens, but if something happened to you, it wasn’t supposed to happen, you know.” 

Is that supposed to make it better? For a moment, Sam glares at Gabriel, then he turns without a word, lifting the back of his shirt. The sharp intake of breath from Gabriel tells him that the scars are still pretty well visible.

He lets the shirt fall down again, starts talking without turning back. “As far as I understood it, Zachariah had orders from Michael to catch one of us princes to use as a bargaining chip for our father’s surrender.”

“Yeah,” Gabriel admits. “That’s called tactics, you know. Would’ve helped us win with minimal bloodshed.”

Sam throws an annoyed glance over his shoulder. “I know. And if you’d managed it, we would be one of your provinces now. That’s why we all kept our mouth shut, when you captured us. But Zachariah was convinced you’d brought him a prince. So he tried to make us talk.”

“I’m pretty sure Michael wouldn’t have been happy, if he knew. As in he’d have made sure to strip Zachariah from his rank personally.”

Sam shrugs. “I’m pretty sure he’d say that now, if confronted. And no one can ask Zachariah about his orders anymore.” He’d made sure of that, when he got away, right at the end of the war. He’d been back right in time for the peace. And it had been a good thing, none of them actually winning. So he had kept his mouth shut to not threaten the negotiations. His family still thought he’d just been lost behind enemy lines for a while.

“Fair enough,” Gabriel admits. “But the war is over now.”

“Still not keen on making polite conversation with Michael during my father’s funeral.” Not to mention marry the guy like he’d been supposed to do, had he stayed. Thinking of that makes Sam feel guilty, because he knows Adam had taken his place.

“Yeah, well, okay, I get why that’d be awkward, but …” There’s the sound of wings. Then Gabriel sets down on the sails in front of Sam again, the wind his wings produce blowing Sam’s hair out of his face. The angel leans forward, gripping the edge of the lookout from the outside. He opens his mouth as if he’s going to say something, but then he stops, staring right into Sam’s eyes.

“Has anyone ever told you that your eyes change color?”

Sam rolls said eyes. “Did you have a point?”

Gabriel smiles and shrugs apologetically. He spreads his wings even wider, giving Sam a good view at admittedly beautiful golden feathers. “Did you know your little brother got me with an arrow during the war? We found out, when we chatted a bit and he mentioned that he thought he hit someone with golden wings. Well …” He extends the left wing of his middle pair towards Sam and brushes some feathers aside with one hand. Underneath, Sam can see a big scar that speaks of a pretty deep wound.

“I almost lost my wing,” Gabriel said. “And Lucifer vowed to kill whoever shot that arrow.”

“Well,” Sam admits, “I’m sure that made for a pretty awkward conversation.”

Gabriel grins. “No shit.”

Sam feels himself relax a little bit. Maybe Gabriel isn’t that bad after all. “How’s Adam doing?” he asks.

“Pretty happy with Michael, I’d say.” Gabriel leans both arms on the edge of the lookout basket and his chin on top of them. “Which comes as a surprise to everyone, I’m not going to lie to you. I’m still not sure how he managed to dislodge the stick Michael had up his ass. I was convinced that was stuck so deep he could occasionally chew on it.”

Despite himself, that makes Sam laugh, and Gabriel fluffs his feathers a bit as if he’s proud of the achievement.

“So,” Gabriel asks. “Are you coming back home with me?”

Maybe he should, just for the funeral? If Sam is honest, he had missed home a bit. And it’s not like they’d make him marry anyone anymore. “I don’t know,” he says anyway. “Maybe I should just take you prisoner for a change. Exchange you for ransom. I’m sure we’d get quite a bit of money for a prince like yourself.”

“Spoken like a true pirate.” Gabriel keeps leaning against the lookout, apparently completely unconcerned. “And being your prisoner doesn’t sound too bad.” He waggles his eyebrows in a suggestive way.

That startles another laugh out of Sam. “Are you hitting on me?”

“Have you seen yourself?” Gabriel grins. “It’d be a crime not to.”

“Seriously?”

“As seriously as I’d kick the butt of everyone who as much as looked at you funny, if you come home with me. Come on, Samshine! I can’t just return and tell them I found you, but you weren’t over the war yet. It was shit, we all got our scars, we’re all trying to move on.”

Sam sighs. “Fine. Just for the funeral.”

Gabriel flaps his wings triumphantly. “See! That wasn’t that hard!”

“Don’t make me regret it!”

* * *

Seeing a pirate ship sail into the harbor of the city close to Castle Winchester is nothing Adam has ever expected. Still now he’s watching it from the battlements, Michael and Lucifer next to him, their wings shielding him from the cold wind that’s blowing today.

Gabriel had announced Sam’s return, or else the ship would probably have been shot to bits as soon as it showed up.

“I should probably go and say hello to my brother,” Adam says. “And give him hell for running away.”

Michael’s wings brush against his shoulders. “If he hadn’t, I wouldn’t have been lucky enough to get you as a husband.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t have minded Sam either.” Lucifer grins. “Not after everything Gabriel tells about him.”

Adam huffs. Gabriel hadn’t just told about Sam, he had definitely gushed. “More comments like that and you can try and see, if he would put up with you being part of the deal, Lucifer.”

Arms wrap around him from behind, and then Adam feels Lucifer’s lips at the shell of his ear. “You’re not just putting up with me.”

It sends a pleasant shiver down Adam’s spine, especially when he sees Michael watching them with interest.

“You should hurry, if you want to be at the dock in time,” Michael says, though. When Adam disentangles himself from Lucifer reluctantly, Michael stops him for a short kiss and to pluck a sunset colored feather out of his hair.

“Someday someone will ask questions about the wrong kind of feathers in your hair,” he says with amusement.

“Well, them trying to tell you that I’m cheating on you with your brother should prove quite interesting.”

When Adam hurries towards the dock, he can still hear Lucifer laughing behind him. He’s really glad Sam ran away and he got to marry Michael in his stead. That doesn’t mean he won’t give Sam hell for running in the first place.

**Author's Note:**

> There's still more to come in this verse.


End file.
